“Betsy,” he said, “there's one thing thee won't deny,--that, if there was a fault, (which I don't allow), it has been expiated. To make known thy suspicions would bring sorrow and trouble upon two persons for whom thee professes to feel some attachment; if thee could prove what thee thinks, it would be a still greater misfortune for them than for me. They are young, and my time is nearly spent. We all have serious burdens which we must bear alone, and thee mustn't forget that the same consideration for the opinion of men which keeps thee silent, keeps me from consenting to Martha's marriage with Gilbert Potter. We are bound alike.” “We're not!” she cried, rising from her seat. “But I see it's no use to talk any more, now. Perhaps since you know that there's a window in you, and me lookin' in, you'll try and keep th' inside o' your house in better order. Whether I'll act accordin' to my knowledge or not, depends on how things turns out, and so sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof, or however it goes!” With these words she left the room, though foiled, not entirely hopeless. “It's like buttin' over an old stone-wall,” she said to Martha. “The first hit with a rammer seems to come back onto you, and jars y'r own bones, and may be the next, and the next; and then little stones git out o' place, and then the wall shakes, and comes down,--and so we've been a-doin'. I guess I made a crack to-day, but we'll see.” CHAPTER XXVI. THE LAST OF SANDY FLASH. The winter crept on, February was drawing to a close, and still Gilbert Potter had not ascertained whence the money was to be drawn which would relieve him from embarrassment. The few applications he had made were failures; some of the persons really had no money to invest, and others were too cautious to trust a man who, as everybody knew, had been unfortunate. In five weeks more the sum must be made up, or the mortgage would be foreclosed. Both Mary Potter and her son, in this emergency, seemed to have adopted, by accident or sympathy, the same policy towards each other,--to cheer and encourage, in every possible way. Gilbert carefully concealed his humiliation, on returning home from an unsuccessful appeal for a loan, and his mother veiled her renewed sinking of the heart, as she heard of his failure, under a cheerful hope of final success, which she did not feel. Both had, in fact, one great consolation to fall back upon,--she that he had been mercifully saved to her, he that he was beloved by a noble woman.